The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 20, 2018
Filed:
Jul. 15, 2016
Near Earth Autonomy, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Adam Stambler, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Lyle J. Chamberlain, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Sebastian Scherer, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
NEAR EARTH AUTONOMY, INC., Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Abstract
An apparatus comprises a time-of-flight ranging sensor that scans in two or more directions relative to the apparatus over a series of scanning cycles. A processor computes, and to communicates to the time-of-flight ranging sensor, a pulse repetition rate (PRR) for the time-of-flight ranging sensor for each of the two or more directions based on information about surrounding terrain of the apparatus and a sensor pointing schedule for the time-of-flight ranging sensor that indicates directions that the time-of-flight ranging sensor is scheduled to point at time during the scanning cycles. In addition or lieu of computing the PRR, the processor(s) matches returns from pulses of the time-of-flight ranging sensor to the pulses probabilistically based on a current map of the vehicle's surroundings and scan coherence analysis for shapes in the returns. The current map can then be updated based on the matched returns for the next iteration.